Life from a Wellcome Trust perspective

Today we launched our new website. It has been designed to put our users’ needs first, be accessible to all, work well across all screen sizes and better serve our international audiences.

As explained in Mark Henderson’s previous announcement, the new site will make it easier to find the information that you need. We will also continue to evolve the site to make it work better for users.

Our new website allows us to regularly post content in a way we haven’t been able to before. The content that would have previously been posted on this blog will now appear on the News section of the new website. This blog will still remain online, but no new content will appear after this post. You will still be able to access all old articles and links will still work.

Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker is not changing, nor are any other Wellcome websites.

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Last year, Stephen Caddick joined Wellcome as Director of Innovation. He has spent the last 12 months listening to staff, researchers and the wider innovation community to gather opinions about how we can best support innovation activities to improve human health. Ahead of the launch of Wellcome’s Innovation strategy later this year, he gives us an update on the new approach and the implications for some of our existing funding schemes.

In my previous life as the enterprise lead for UCL, I had the privilege of supporting many great entrepreneurs and companies, and to set up a venture from my academic lab. I also saw many promising ideas flounder because of a lack of early phase support and encouragement. I was therefore excited by the opportunity to take up the role as Director of Innovation for Wellcome, an organisation with a track record in helping people turn their discoveries into innovations that improve human health.

Over the past decade, Wellcome’s Innovations team has built an exceptional portfolio of translational projects, and earned a deserved reputation for helping scientists from around the world take those first challenging steps along the daunting road to commercialisation. Our role during this time has been as a gap funder, helping entrepreneurs in universities and companies to reach the stage where their products could be taken forward by other investors.

It has proved a successful approach. To date we’ve supported the development of some 30 new products and helped a similar number reach the clinic. Devices, drugs and technologies we’ve funded are being used today by doctors and patients in India, Africa, South East Asia and here in the UK. It’s a privilege to have inherited such an impressive legacy.

A rapid DNA dipstick for detection of Chlamydia trachomatis

We should be extremely proud of all we’ve achieved to date, and I think we can build on this to be even more ambitious. Since joining Wellcome, I’ve been working with colleagues inside and outside the organisation to develop a new strategy for Innovation – one that places a greater emphasis on long-term impact.

With so many successes under our belt, you could be forgiven for asking – why change? But the world of innovation has changed, and there are now many other gap funders – public funders, private investors and corporations – operating in the early translational space. Yet few of these organisations have the freedom to pursue innovation with the sole aim of improving lives.

Wellcome is rare in that respect. Our financial independence gives us the freedom to take on problems others would find very challenging. We could do almost anything, but we can’t do everything. In future we will consider working earlier and later in the translation pathway, but we will focus on a much smaller number of themes where we think we can make a real difference.

We recognise too that one of our great strengths is our flexibility, and we will retain the ability to advance ideas in a small number of activities outside those that fit with our priority themes. It’s an approach that aligns closely with Wellcome’s strategic framework, which we launched in 2015.

It’s still a work in progress. I hope to be able to share the full details of our new approach later in 2016, but in the meantime I wanted to give an update on some of the key elements of our new strategy ‘Innovation for Impact’:

Building better links between science, technology and innovation. We will remove barriers between these disciplines to make it easier to take the first translational step. We may play a more active role in supporting technology.

Creating a global community dedicated to innovation for impact. We will tap into our international network of companies, supporters and expert advisors to help encourage people from outside the life sciences to engage in biomedical research and innovation.

Supporting the next generation of innovation leaders. We will work with emerging innovation leaders, giving them support and access to mentorship through interaction with our global network. We hope to encourage a greater diversity of career paths for scientists by helping them to engage in translation and innovation at an earlier stage in their career.

The SmartCane™ brings safe and independent mobility for the visually impaired at an affordable cost

Our new direction inevitably means making some changes to our existing funding schemes, which will transition to the new approach over the next nine to 12 months. We will do all we can during this time to minimise disruption for our grant holders and new applicants, and I’m confident that, once up and running, our approach will allow us to make decisions more quickly than we have done before.

With our new strategy in place, our primary purpose remains unchanged. We will continue to work with talented people from around the world to transform great ideas, discoveries and inventions into preventions, treatments and cures for disease. We cannot achieve any of our aims on our own. We’ll still need your time, energy, advice and commitment so that together we can achieve innovation for impact – to improve people’s lives. We’re grateful to all those who have supported us to date, and look forward to the next exciting chapter.

When we know treatments work, it’s vital that people can access them. Decades of research we have funded led to enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT-E) being recommended as a treatment for all eating disorders in the NHS. We’ve also supported a new form of online training for therapists to deliver CBT-E so that the treatment can be implemented quickly.

Task-shifting

Diagnosing and treating mental health conditions is a particularly big challenge in low and middle income countries, where resources are scarce. We hope ‘task-shifting’ – when skills from mental health specialists are taught to non-specialists – can tackle this. We’re funding a project in Goa to train non-specialist health workers to deliver psychosocial interventions, including yoga and interpersonal therapy, to help young people with mental health problems.

Prevention

Just as physical training is associated with improved physical health, we think psychological resilience training could lead to better mental health outcomes, and prevent mental health conditions. To test the theory we’re funding a large-scale trial studying the effectiveness of mindfulness in nearly six thousand 11-13 year olds across the UK.

Genetics

We know that someone’s genetic make-up can play a part in why they develop a mental health condition. The discovery of the first robust genetic links to depression came from a study we funded of Chinese women with and without depression. It will take a long time and much more research, but we hope studying the genetic variants will reveal new biological pathways in the brain that could be targeted by new therapies.

Subtypes

There are many combinations of symptoms and risk factors that all lead to the same diagnosis of depression. We’re funding a large study in Scotland to understand whether there are actually different subtypes of depression, and why some people develop the illness while others don’t. With a better picture of these subtypes we can improve diagnostic tests, and develop more tailored therapies.

Technology

Technology can have an enormous impact on mental health conditions. A project we’ve funded found that computer avatars could help people with schizophrenia who still hear persecutory voices despite taking antipsychotic drugs. Another project we funded shows that playing Tetris can reduce flashbacks of traumatic events, and may be a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Drugs

Developing and testing new medicines to treat mental health disorders is very challenging – we can’t routinely biopsy a patient’s brain, and we can’t make animal models that completely mimic mental health disorders. We now think there’s a promising link between the immune system and depression, so we’re helping to fund a study to see if re-purposed anti-inflammatory drugs might help to reduce the symptoms of depression. If this approach works, there is an added benefit in that such medicines could reach patients quickly because they are already approved for human use.

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Mark Henderson, Head of Communications, gives us a preview of the upcoming launch of our new website and updated brand.

For many of the people Wellcome works with, visiting our website is the first contact they will have with us. As someone who is often in a hurry and usually on the move I’m aware of how essential it is that people can easily find what they are looking for and immediately get a sense of who we are.

Our website should be where we communicate Wellcome’s mission and encourage those with great ideas to work with us. It should showcase the breadth of the work we support in accessible, engaging and creative ways. It should also help people find and understand our policies and practices when it matters to them.

Our current website doesn’t do this as well as it could, and we want to put this right.

What’s changing?

Next week, our current website – wellcome.ac.uk – will be replaced by a completely redesigned site that has been built to work better for the people who visit it.

The new site’s design was informed by what people told us was wrong with the old one and what they said they’d like our site to be like. The new site has been designed to be accessible and work well across all screen sizes. While we built the site, an external agency did regular usability testing, to check that it works for users in the ways they want.

We know that it won’t be perfect right away. When the site launches we will be able to see how well it works for users – you! – in the real world. We will continually work to improve and evolve it, adding features and content to make it even better. If you find something that doesn’t work quite right – perhaps a broken link or something that doesn’t read correctly – just contact us and let us know. We may already be working to fix it, but if not, we will address it quickly.

Alongside building our new website, we have also been redesigning our brand – and the new website is one of the first places to feature it. We’ve designed the brand to reflect the diversity and creativity of contemporary science, to work well in digital channels, and to help connect the different types of work that we do. It is much more flexible too – we hope you like it.

On the same day we launch the site we will update our brand on our social media and other digital channels. We’ll then apply it to our non-digital materials and our sub-brands over the summer. For more information about our updated brand, look out for an upcoming news article once the new website is live.

What isn’t changing?

Many users of our current website have links saved as bookmarks or published in documents. These links will still work, with users sent to the most relevant page on the new site.

The following will not be affected:

Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker

Any ongoing applications for funding or job applications

All other Wellcome websites

What’s happening to this blog?

The News section on the new site will allow us to regularly publish high-quality content in a way that we are currently unable to. Much of the content that would have previously been published on this blog will now be published on the new site.

The blog will still remain online, but no new content will appear after the new site launches. You will still be able to access all old articles. Existing links to the blog will still work too.

This blog published its first article in June 2008, on the work of osteologists and what skeletons can tell us about the history of London. Nearly eight years and two million views later, we’ve published 1,517 articles on everything from the success of the Ebola vaccine to the ethics of labiaplasty.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed articles and ideas, shared our posts, and shown so much enthusiasm for the breadth of our work.

What do you think?

After the launch, we want to hear from you. Please send your comments and suggestions to webmaster@wellcome.ac.uk. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible and your feedback will help to guide our future work to evolve our new website.

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This week, Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images, picks out her favourite image in the collection.

This image captivated me the moment I first saw it over 20 years ago. Obviously, it has a very strong initial impact; at first it seems as if the woman is wearing a high collared cape. As you look at the image, the detail emerges revealing her back as viciously flayed open from orbit to sacrum showing the ribcage and muscles of her back whilst she, apparently unperturbed, glances nonchalantly over her shoulder.

The artist was working with an anatomist, J. F. Duverney (d 1748), to produce these amazing colour prints working from the anatomist’s dissections.

Gautier d’Agoty had learned the three colour technique, the first of its kind, from Jacob Christoph le Blon (1667-1741) with whom he worked as an assistant. D’Agoty added black to the three colours, giving greater depth and shading to the resulting prints and resulting in a much more lifelike appearance, especially when used for a subject such as this.

The prints have a velvety quality with none of the harsh lines of etching or other forms of engraving. Along with the depth of naturalistic colour, this conveys the fleshy depths and surfaces of the human body in a way that had never been done before and also allowed it to be reproducible in a printed volume.

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Clearing our throats for International Cough Drop Day*, we bring you a beautiful apothecary jar from Henry Wellcome’s collection, made in Sicily between 1601 and 1630.

Its inscription translates from the Latin as ‘Mesue’s French Musked Lozenges of Aloes Wood.’ These lozenges were pressed from a mixture of aloe wood, ambergris and musk. Ambergris is a greasy substance excreted or coughed up by a small number of sperm whales to clear their stomachs of squid beaks.

Like musk, it is difficult to obtain in large quantities which explains in part its extraordinarily high value – ambergris was reputedly equal to gold in London’s medieval ports. Despite the development of synthetic replacements its complex aroma makes it a prized fixative still for perfumiers.

These lozenges were believed to strengthen the brain and heart and, as the ingredients are very fragrant, they also acted as a deodorant and breath freshener. The preparation had greatest popularity in France.

Mesue (777-857 CE) was the European name for Yuhanna Ibn Masawayh, a prominent Christian physician who wrote in Arabic. Ibn Masawayh worked at the Baghdad hospital and was personal physician to a number of Caliphs.If you prefer your historical lozenges with a little more kick, we might refer you to these Allenbury’s Throat Pastilles (No.63) from the 1920s, whose key ingredients – diamorphine and cocaine – were available in pharmacy cough drops, with diminishing strength, through to the 1960s. Or perhaps Dr Seth Arnolds Cough Killer, whose death-dealing claims lay in its generous lacing with morphine.

*There is some debate about whether International Cough Drop Day exists. We were led to believe this by someone else, but it’s OK because it’s also National Blame Someone Else Day.

Back in November 2014 we at Wellcome announced some changes to our funding structure, with a focus on simple, flexible award schemes. Today, one of the last pieces of this new structure falls into place, with the introduction of a single award for clinical research fellows, the new Wellcome Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship. Here, Anne-Marie Coriat, Head of Research Careers, explains the change, and how we hope this provides a better offer to clinical researchers…

Embedding research alongside healthcare is key to understanding the biological basis of disease, driving medical innovation and developing cutting-edge treatments. At the same time, we understand that being a clinical researcher can be challenging, with many different competing demands – including time in the lab, completing a clinical specialism and maintaining a work-life balance.

We have spent a long time listening to the community, both through individual meetings and through workshops with the directors of the Wellcome Clinical PhD Programmes, clinical trainees, funders, medical school deans and others. One of the key outcomes from this process was to make sure that Wellcome is working with other funders, NIHR, the Academy of Medical Sciences to develop a clear, supportive and connected framework for clinical academic research so that together, we can ensure the best career development for this critically important group of researchers.

In July last year we explained that we had updated our thinking on how we could better support clinicians who want to pursue a career in research. In November 2015 we launched the new clinical PhD programme and we are now delighted to launch the Wellcome Clinical Research Career Development Fellowships. This fellowship consolidates two of our existing schemes into a single, flexible award. and complements the changes we have already introduced for our basic science fellowships.

The Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship provides the option of longer-term support and a greater ability to balance research and clinical training responsibilities. The scheme is open to those who are re-entering academia after career breaks or extended periods of clinical training, and will adapt to the evolving clinical training model.

Our primary aim in making these revisions is to provide flexible support for the next generation of clinical academics.

Key features of the new scheme

the Clinical Research Career Development fellowship can be held for up to 8 years in total, split into two stages separated by a flexible but competitive “gate”

no stage will be longer than 5 years of full time funding and each will be peer reviewed

all components can be completed part time or pro rata

time to work overseas or in laboratories outside of your home institution can be included

at the time of initial application, you will need to estimate when you intend to apply for the gate; this can be adjusted annually, depending on progress through Phase I.

neither phase can be held for longer than 5 years (pro rata) and the total length of fellowship support cannot exceed 8 years (pro rata)

Labradors may be prone to becoming overweight due to a newly identified gene variant that is associated with obesity and appetite.

The UK’s most popular dog breed has long been associated with obesity, despite their diets being controlled by their owners. Wellcome-funded researchers studied 310 dogs to identify the presence of three possible obesity-related genes. They also questioned the owners about their dogs’ behaviour to assess ‘food motivation.’

The researchers found that one gene variant – called POMC – was very strongly associated with weight, obesity and appetite in these dogs. For each copy of the gene variant the dog carried, they were on average 1.9kg heavier than their counterparts without it. The gene this variant affects is also known to play an important role in how the brain recognises hunger and feeling full in humans.

The findings go some way to explaining why Labradors make such good working dogs; they are often trained with food as a reward and this gene variant could make them more motivated to work for it.

Professor Stephen O’Rahilly, Co-Director of the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science explains how the results of this study could also have implications for humans: “Common genetic variants affecting the POMC gene are associated with human body weight and there are even some rare obese people who lack a very similar part of the POMC gene to the one that is missing in the dogs. So further research in these obese Labradors may not only help the wellbeing of companion animals but also have important lessons for human health.”

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have grown and catalogued more than 130 bacteria from the human intestines to help us understand how they keep us healthy.

In research published in Nature, scientists have developed a method to culture these bacteria in a laboratory. Until now this had been a difficult process as many of the bacterial species are sensitive to oxygen.

Approximately 2% of a person’s body weight can be attributed to bacteria, and imbalances in this microbiome can lead to syndromes and diseases like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, allergies and obesity. By culturing these essential bacteria in a lab, scientists can sequence their genomes and try to create tailored treatments using specific bacteria.

Dr Trevor Lawley, group leader at the Sanger Institute said: “Being able to cast light on this microbial ‘Dark matter’ has implications for the whole of biology and how we consider health. We will be able to isolate the microbes from people with a specific disease, such as infection, cancers or autoimmune diseases, and study these microbes in a mouse model to see what happens. Studying our ‘second’ genome, that of the microbiota, will lead to a huge increase in our understanding of basic biology and the relationship between our gut bacteria and health and disease.”

Storing memories

Memories are replayed and stored in a different part of the brain to where they are formed, according to a new Wellcome-funded study in rats.

The team studied ‘place cells’ in the rats’ hippocampus, an area of the brain important for forming memories, and in the ‘grid cells’ of the entorhinal cortex. The Rats’ brain activity was monitored as they ran along a track for 30 minutes, before resting for 90 minutes.

Activity in the place cells showed the rats replaying their movements on the track in their mind at speeds 10-20 times faster than reality. This activity was also seen with only a 10 millisecond delay in grid cells in a different area of the brain, suggesting that memories are transferred quickly from one area to another.

The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that replaying memories during rest is essential for consolidating memories. It could offer clues to why people with Alzheimer’s can often recall childhood memories, but not recent ones, as the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex areas of the brain are some of the first to be damaged by the disease.

Wellcome Fellow Dr Caswell Barry from the department of Cell & Developmental Biology at UCL said: “This is the first time we’ve seen coordinated replay between two areas of the brain known to be important for memory, suggesting a filing of memories from one area to another. The hippocampus constantly absorbs information but it seems it can’t store everything so replays the important memories for long-term storage and transfers them to the entorhinal cortex, and possibly on to other areas of the brain, for safe-keeping and easy access.”

A new weapon against Zika

Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium, has been found to be a critical weapon in combatting the spread of Zika virus according to new research published in Cell Host and Microbe.

Insects that are infected with Wolbachia are unable to transmit certain viruses as the bacterium prevents the virus particles replicating within the insect. The bacterium is already known to inhibit the transmission of Dengue virus and was therefore predicted to be effective against the closely-related Zika virus.

Wellcome-funded researchers fed wild mosquitos and Wolbachia-infected mosquitos with blood containing two recently-circulating strains of the Zika virus from South America. The mosquitos infected with Wolbachia had a greatly reduced amount of virus in their saliva compared to the field mosquitos. It is the first published report on the use on Wolbachia against Zika and suggests that the bacterium might be able to block Zika transmission in the field.

Lead scientist Professor Scot O’Neill from Monash University said: “The method we’re using is safe for humans and the environment, and has received widespread international support from governments, regulators and community members. With additional studies testing Zika and Wolbachia also underway in Singapore and Colombia, we’re well positioned to be part of global efforts combining traditional and new approaches to stop the spread of Aedes-borne viral diseases.”

Other Wellcome Trust research news

Scientists have developed a new technique to allow embryos to survive and develop in vitro (outside the body) past the implantation stage. Research into this crucial stage of human development has been hindered as it has previously been impossible to carry out studies on embryos past the point at which they would normally implant in the womb. Published in Nature, this technique will allow scientists to culture embryos up to day 13 of development, a day under the UK legal limit.

Five new genes associated with breast cancer have been identified by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in the largest-ever breast cancer sequencing study to date. As well as the five genes, the analysis of 560 breast cancer genomes also found 13 new mutational signatures that can influence tumour development. The results, published in Nature and Nature Communications reveal more about the highly individual nature of breast cancer genomes and suggest a role for more personalised treatment of these tumours.

Antibiotic drug-resistant epidemics could be tackled in real time by combining DNA sequencing and laboratory tests with internet-based location tracking and computer analysis. Researchers developed an on-line tool called Microreact and studied the emergence and transmission of the ‘superbugs’ MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and MSSA (methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus) across 450 hospitals in Europe. This research is published in mBio.

A new class of drug could offer hope to men with aggressive prostate cancer that has stopped responding to conventional treatment. Wellcome-funded researchers studied a type of drug called Hsp90 inhibitors which target the mechanism that prostate cancer cells use to evade normal treatment methods. This research is published in Cancer Research.

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As part of Wellcome Collection’s new exhibition, THIS IS A VOICE, artist Marcus Coates has been participating in Voicings, a programme of performances and demonstrations taking place each day in the gallery.

His installation in the exhibition, Dawn Chorus, shows people mimicking birdsong while going about their morning routines. Visitors who come to the exhibition this weekend can see people doing this live – although hugely slowed down to allow the bird sounds to be replicated by human voices.

This offers participants the chance to enter the realm of a bird’s song from a unique perspective. Once slowed down, the hidden dynamics and rhythms start to appear. The songs become human in scale and within our reach, asking us to examine our relationship to these strange vocals, how they compare to our own, and what this says about the voice as a form of expression across species.

Dawn Chorus was funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award back in 2007, so today’s image is a film about how it was made. You can see Dawn Chorus in THIS IS A VOICE at Wellcome Collection until 31 July 2016.

An ambitious group exhibition that brings six artists working with animation together with six leading biomedical scientists, to create experimental animated artworks exploring new ways of thinking about the human body.

A major solo exhibition by Glasgow-based artist Jacqueline Donachie, including sculpture and drawings made in the last five years alongside new works developed from a period of research with a group of women affected by an inherited genetic condition, made in collaboration with the UK Myotonic Dystrophy Patient Registry at The John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre in Newcastle. Central to the exhibition is the new film work Hazel, a powerful three screen installation that directly connects the experiences of the participants. Supported by a Small Arts Award.

Thomson & Craighead’s video installation Stutterer shows how visual artists have represented the fundamental scales of life – from molecules to organelles to cells to tissue. Supported by a Small Arts award.

Following research in the fields of atypical perception, the neuroscience of embodiment, and autism, London-based multidisciplinary artist Louisa Martin stages an immersive installation at Cubitt. Set to explore bodies and embodied experiences that are not articulated in existing, standardised representational systems, this is Martin’s first solo exhibition in London. Supported by a Small Arts Award.

What if every neuron in the human brain could be mapped and decoded? Every act of human behaviour catalogued and wholly understood? Elegy imagines a very-near future with radical and unprecedented advances in medical science, through the story of three women who’ve made the choice between love and survival. Supported by a Small Arts Award.

Elegy Q&A with Josie Rourke – 17th May, 6pm: Director Josie Rourke in conversation with Deborah Bowman, Professor of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics and Medical Law, discussing how memory, identity and sense of self Elegyintertwine and the impact of their loss on individuals and those that love them.

Improbable’s new show is a whistle-stop tour of the scientific quest to make sense of what we are and who we are, told through ten great psychological experiments and the stories of the people who created them. After the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the show will move to the Bristol Old Vic. Supported by a Small Arts Award.

Theatre Témoin returns with a new show, using mask, puppetry, and physical theatre to navigate a dark and imaginative landscape. As a boy, Jack lived in a world of angels and demons who fed off the bravery and pain of the adults around him. Now grown, when a ghost from his past turns up Jack must harness the power of forgotten myths to defeat her. Funded by a People Award.

An autobiographical, audio-based artwork that immerses the audience in writer Shannon Yee’s experience of descending into coma from a rare brain infection, brain surgeries, and her subsequent rehabilitation with an acquired brain injury. Audiences experience the performance via headphones, while on hospital beds wearing eyemasks. Funded by a Small Arts Award and showing as part of A Nation’s Theatre.

Gutted– HOME Manchester, 19th-21st May and Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford Playhouse, 25th June

The Conker Group and HOME present a new show of love, laughter and lavatories. Inviting you on a journey of frank confessions, colourful characters and too much brown sauce, Gutted is based on solo performer Liz Richardson’s real life experiences as a twenty-something living with Ulcerative Colitis. Supported by a People Award.

In a care home lounge somewhere in the South of England, 97-year old Marsha Hewitt begins the last day of her life. But she cannot go quietly. As the radiators burn and Jeremy Kyle blares, festering rivalries, estranged relatives and murderous impulses jostle for space on the Axminster carpet. Presented by Inspector Sands, The Lounge looks at the way we as a nation cope, or fail to cope, with the process of ageing we are all engaged in, young and old. Supported by a Small Arts Award.

A story about the physiology of endurance – when our brains tell our bodies to stop – and the psychology of carrying on. It is the story about preparing mind and body for a 2.4 mile swim, 112 miles of cycling, then running a marathon. Alongside scientists and psychologists from the University of Northumbria, documentary footage from filmmaker Niall Coffey, and with help and direction from collaborator Alexander Kelly, Hannah Nicklin tells the story of what it means both psychologically and physiologically to train for and attempt a great feat of endurance. Funded through the Small Arts Awards.

A new one person show that unravels the story of a wayward yet fragile and misunderstood boy who lives within his untamed imagination, created by writer Evan Placey, tutti frutti, and CANDAL at Nottingham University. Funded through the Small Arts awards, the show is performed for children aged 3-8 years, their teachers and families.

Fresh from Blue Peter and BBC’s Factomania, join Wellcome Engagement Fellow Greg Foot for a show of curious questions and explosive answers. Greg will answer your questions live, whether that involves using a giant flamethrower, making a rainbow indoors or launching a space rocket! Bring along your own burning science questions for Greg to answer, or tweet them in advance to @gregfoot.

For lots of people IVF is a modern miracle and the media is full of stories of success. But two thirds of all IVF cycles fail – the statistics have changed very little since Louise Brown the first IVF baby was born in 1978 – and few talk about the devastating emotional impact of going through treatment. Fertility Fest, funded by a People Award, will bring together over twenty writers, visual artists, theatre-makers, film-directors, composers and fertility experts in a day of performance, discussion and debate.

Fertility Fest is taking place alongside the world premiere of Gareth Farr’s new play The Quiet House. An ordinary couple find themselves on an extraordinary journey when they enter the world of IVF. Forced to fight for the family they desperately want, they put their faith in science and their relationship through the ultimate test.

The Crunch

The Crunch dramatised dialogue events Act 1– various venues

Come to this dramatised dialogue event, which will use an innovative format combining verbatim theatre and dialogue to encourage you to consider and talk about our food, our health and our planet. You are encouraged to attend Act 1 and Act 2 in your local area, and Act 3 in Oxford, so you can be taken on the full journey and see what you find out.

A festival of innovative, provocative, national and international work in a series of spaces including areas of the building normally off-limits to the public. It brings together contemporary dance, visual arts, music and theatre in interactive installations, exhibitions and performances, including Three Little Pigs, a new show for ages 2+. The festival is part of Clod Ensemble’s Sustaining Excellence Award. See the full programme here.

Set in a bathroom, Nobody’s Home follows a soldier’s journey through his own mind, as he struggles with the monsters of his past to finally come home. The next tour date is at Nuffield Theatre in Southampton on 12th April.

Combining gene splicing, surgical enhancement and ambition, Level Up Human takes a light-hearted look at the alternatives to being human. Join Simon Watt and guests for the live recording of an exciting new podcast series at various venues, including Cheltenham Festival and Glastonbury. Funded by a People Award.

A practical toolkit of 99 step-by-step vocal exercises to help speakers and singers of all abilities transform the quality of their voice. With a foreword by Cerys Matthews, the book is available now. This is a Voice: the book – now available

Voices are unique. As soon as we open our mouths to speak we reveal a lot about ourselves – our biology, status, geography and state of mind. Join us for a discussion on the relationship between the voice and identity.

Perspectives from artists, psychologists, philosophers and neuroscientists are presented together to interrogate our understanding of the conscious experience.

States of Mind: Tracing the edges of consciousness features a series of changing installations. The exhibition features the new installation, H.M. by Kerry Tribe, which opened this week. Find out more about the installations.

Understanding the nature of consciousness continues to challenge even the leading experts in the field. This collection of literature, science and art delves into the mysteries of consciousness and features an introduction by Mark Haddon. States of Mind is available online and from Wellcome Shop.

Neuroscientist Dr Sophie Duport and clinician Dr Kudret Yelden, from the Royal Hospital of Neurodisability, discuss the clinical, scientific and ethical issues that surround the care of patients at the edge of consciousness.

How can you return to your life after brain injury, when your memory, movement or speech may have been significantly changed? Speak with people living with the effects of brain injury as they lead you through games and performance. This event is in partnership with Headway East London.

In January 2011, Peggy Shaw had a stroke and shortly after made RUFF, a performance designed to illustrate the performer’s changed abilities. In this event, Shaw and RUFF director Lois Weaver share creative methods to reveal the power of the imagination in the face of extreme circumstances.

Candoco Dance Company, the company of disabled and non-disabled dancers, curate our next Friday Late. Experience intimate moments of contemporary dance and sound and consider the subtleties and complexities of what it means to be on display with live performances, talks and workshops.

The Morbid Anatomy blog and museum in New York hosts thinkers and artists excavating the intersections of the history of art and medicine, death and culture. At this event, hear a series of illustrated talks by contributors to the recently re-released Morbid Anatomy Anthology.

What can a surgeon and a tailor learn from one another? More than you might imagine… Mingle with Professor Roger Kneebone, clinicians and craftsmen for an unconventional day of informal conversation and even try some handiwork of your own.

Mental health care and the work of mental health charities changed dramatically in the 20th century. This talk will explore the changes through original material from the newly catalogued archive of Mind (formerly the National Association for Mental Health).

Prize-winning author, historian and psychiatrist George Makari takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life and how a new concept – the mind – emerged as a potential solution.

In these practical workshops, singer-songwriter Jonny Berliner will talk you through the mechanics of the voice and introduce you to a range of vocal techniques. He will also go through the basics of composition to show you how to record your own a cappella compositions using GarageBand on ipads. This workshop is inspired by our exhibition THIS IS A VOICE. We’ll provide all the materials you’ll need

Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was a maverick physician who had a consulting room in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. He was an art lover/collector, amateur artist and a friend of many artists, including Vincent van Gogh. Read about their brief but significant relationship, resulting in the only etching Van Gogh ever created.

Part of THIS IS A VOICE, Matthew Herbert’s Chorus uses visitors’ voices to form an ever-expanding sound installation. Explore Chorus online using the interactive tools to adjust the voices and add your own.

Electric Lullaby is an adsorbing first person exploration game about sharing your body with a monster within you on an adventure about sleep, alter egos and co-operation. Embark on a journey to awaken a dreamlike world, by restoring ancient monuments and managing your character’s sleep. Progress is made through the relationship with your alter ego, who is controlled by your device when you stop playing.

April 2016 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. One way we’re commemorating this anniversary is by exploring the four bodily humours and their effect on some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters. Find out more about the humours in Shakespeare and how they’ve been represented in the work of the Bard of Avon.

Professor Robert MacLaren carrying out gene therapy at the John Radcliffe Hospital

Researchers at the University of Oxford have found gene therapy can return some sight to people with inherited blindness for up to four years after treatment.

Scientists used gene therapy to treat people with chorideremia – a genetic disease causing progressive loss of vision, and eventually complete blindness.

They injected a harmless virus directly into the eye to replace the gene missing in people with chorideremia. Four years after treatment, two of the six people on the trial had much better vision, and three had no deterioration in their treated eyes.

Professor Robert MacLaren, who led the study, said this seemingly permanent effect “is the breakthrough we have all been waiting for”.

It’s hoped gene therapy could restore sight in people with other types of inherited blindness, including retinitis pigmentosa, and age-related macular degeneration.

Wellcome funded the study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, through our Health Innovation Challenge Fund in partnership with NIHR.

This is an excerpt and image taken from the article, ‘The experimental diet that mimics a rare genetic mutation’ by Peter Bowes, published by Mosaic.

A group of people in Ecuador have a form of dwarfism that protects them against some diseases and ageing. Peter Bowes discovers the science behind their condition, and asks whether the health benefits of this particular genetic mutation could be replicated by a diet involving fasting.

Zvi Laron, a researcher working with people of stunted growth, first identified the condition in the late 1950s.

Laron found that his patients had the body’s primary growth hormone (GH) in abundance in their bloodstream, an observation that seemed to defy logic, since they had stunted growth. He concluded that their dwarfism was caused by damage to GH receptors in the liver. It results in extremely low levels of another growth hormone, known as insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1).

In the normal sequence of events, GH, secreted by the pituitary gland, locks on to GH receptors, initiating the production of IGF-1 in the liver. But if a mutation has caused the receptors to be faulty, there are two major effects: the body is unable to generate IGF-1 and the individual is more sensitive to the hormone insulin, which helps regulate the amount of sugar in the bloodstream.

Because IGF-1 stimulates cells to grow and divide, lack of it is linked to a lower risk of cancer – uncontrolled cell division. Meanwhile, a greater sensitivity to insulin helps to prevent diabetes.

There are about 350 “Larons”, people living with Laron syndrome, today, about a third of whom live in Loja, a remote, mountainous province of southern Ecuador. They grow to about a metre in height and experience delayed puberty.

Historians think that Ecuador’s Larons descended from conversos, Sephardi Jews who converted to Christianity and fled to South America at the time of the Spanish inquisition in the 16th century. At first there may have been just one person who had no outward symptoms but passed on a recessive gene. It is assumed that, over generations, inbreeding in the small, isolated Ecuadorian community led to children being born with copies of this gene inherited from both parents – which causes Laron syndrome.

It was Jaime Guevara-Aguirre who in 1988 began studying Larons living in Ecuador. He has been caring for about 100 Laron patients for the past three decades.

During this time, Guevara-Aguirre has had only one Laron patient die of cancer and none from diabetes. This is in contrast to their relatives without Laron syndrome, who have a death rate from cancer of 17 per cent and 5 per cent from diabetes. Despite higher body fat, Larons have a lower resistance to insulin and a much lower incidence of diabetes. And they do not need to fast to achieve this. They eat what they like and are often obese. Because the mutation in their GH receptors blocks the production of IGF-1 in their bodies, they can get fat and still not develop diabetes.

“They’re the human version of what the research of many groups has shown in simple organisms,” says Valter Longo, biogerontologist and director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute. Longo and others have shown that you can significantly extend the life of yeast, nematode worms, flies and rhesus monkeys by introducing mutations that affect growth. Scientists have also found that mice, when genetically modified so that their GH receptors are impaired, enjoy lives 40 per cent longer than normal. What’s more, their longer lives are also free of major diseases.

“It’s a remarkable increase in health span, in addition to longevity,” says Longo. He believes the same could apply to humans. The ageing process appears to be controlled, in distantly related organisms, by similar genes and mechanisms. “The thing about the Laron dwarfs in Ecuador,” David Gems, Professor of Biogerontology at the Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London says, “is that they provide some tantalising evidence that this control of ageing extends from the animal models up to humans.”

This is an excerpt taken from the article, ‘The experimental diet that mimics a rare genetic mutation’ by Peter Bowes, published by Mosaic: the magazine dedicated to exploring the science of life, at the Wellcome Trust. Read the full article on mosaicscience.com.

The focus of WHO’s World Immunisation Week is closing the immunisation gap, which means getting vaccines that already exist to those who need them. But there are many diseases for which we do not have a vaccine, or the vaccine we have is not effective enough. Here Dr Charlie Weller, who leads the Wellcome Trust’s vaccines work, highlights some of these infections, and why developing a safe and effective vaccine is particularly challenging.

Most of us take vaccines for granted. We are used to getting regular injections when we are children and teenagers, and occasionally when we go abroad.

But, we still lack vaccines to many of the most common infectious diseases, not to mention emerging infections and neglected tropical diseases.

Vaccines work by mimicking our body’s natural response to an infection so that the next time we are exposed, our immune system knows how to respond and protect us against disease.

The steps to developing a vaccine are similar across all diseases, but each comes with its own specific challenges. Here are seven infectious diseases for which vaccine development has proved a tough nut to crack.

HIV

HIV hides inside the immune system, infecting the very cells that are needed to coordinate a response against the virus. Many years and billions of dollars have been invested in developing an HIV vaccine. Some hope came in 2009, with a vaccine which protected 31% of people. Researchers are trying to understand what parts of the immune response protected those people, so that they can design better vaccines. In a promising development, researchers have recently found antibodies that completely block HIV from infecting cells and are racing to design vaccines that recreate them.

Malaria

Unlike diseases caused by viruses or bacteria, malaria is caused by a tiny parasite with a complex life cycle. After more than 25 years in development, at a cost of over $800m, the first malaria vaccine was licensed in 2015. However, the RTS,S vaccine was less effective than many hoped – protecting only around a quarter to a half of children. Still, as malaria is responsible for over 500,000 deaths every year, RTS,S is still a huge breakthrough that could save many lives. We now need to figure out how best to use this new vaccine in combination with bed nets, mosquito control and other approaches.

Rotavirus

More than half a million children under five die each year from rotavirus infections. Most of these happen in developing countries, where getting existing vaccines to those who need them is problematic for many reasons including what’s called the ‘cold chain’. Vaccines are very sensitive to temperature and must be transported from the manufacturer to the patient in a series of fridges or freezers stretching across the world. In rural areas or those prone to power cuts, up to half of vaccine doses are ‘spoilt’ because the cold chain is broken or faulty. Making existing vaccines more tolerant to heat and freezing would reduce waste and increase access to life-saving vaccines. Work by the Wellcome-funded Hilleman labs in India is underway to achieve this for rotavirus.

Tuberculosis

The BCG vaccine has been used for over 90 years. It protects against more severe forms of TB, but is not effective against pulmonary TB (in the lungs). One third of the world’s population is estimated to be infected with TB, but not everyone who carries the bacterium will get sick. Finding out why is crucial to designing a more effective vaccine. The need has never been more pressing, with resistance to TB drugs on the rise around the world. People with TB must take daily antibiotics for up to nine months, but many stop taking them earlier contributing to the problem of drug resistance. The situation is so bad that there are now people with TB who cannot be cured.

Chagas disease

Chagas is caused by a parasite Trypanosoma cruzi that infects humans through the bite of a blood-sucking bug. It is found mainly across Latin America in some of the poorest communities. Like malaria, T cruzi parasites have evolved to hide from the human immune system. One approach is a therapeutic vaccine – given to people already infected to ‘boost’ their immune system to eliminate the parasite once and for all. However, vaccine development is expensive, and for this complicated disease which affects mainly those who can’t pay for a vaccine, the field is lagging behind.

Flu

Flu is a seasonal illness, and each new season brings with it a slightly different form of the virus. This means a new flu jab must be made each year to match the circulating strains that experts have predicted are most likely to become a problem. A big worry is that it can take six months to make the first doses, so if a flu virus changes and suddenly becomes very deadly (pandemic flu), it might take many months before enough vaccine can be made to protect everyone.

Researchers are trying to create a ‘universal’ flu vaccine, which would provide lifelong protection from all strains of the virus. But this is a long way off. In the meantime, the WHO is helping countries to increase their manufacturing capacity so they are ready to produce as much vaccine as possible in the event of a pandemic.

Zika

Zika has rarely been out of the headlines since the beginning of 2016. This mosquito-transmitted disease is in the same family as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. At the start of the current epidemic in South America, no vaccine candidates existed. However, Zika vaccine development is progressing rapidly, including one approach that uses the dengue vaccine as a ‘backbone’. As the dengue vaccine has already been shown to be safe in people, this approach may speed up development.

An added complication of Zika vaccines is that the people most in need of protection are pregnant women or women thinking of becoming pregnant. These women are usually initially excluded from clinical trials, so we must figure out the safest but quickest way to ensure a vaccine gets to them.

Like this:

With St George’s day on the horizon, our image of the week tells the story through cellular processes found in the human body. The part of St George being played by a T-lymphocyte (blue) and that of the slain dragon by a cancer cell (green).

A killer Image

A T-lymphocyte, or T-cell, is a type of white blood cell. This particular T-cell is the cytotoxic kind (toxic to living cells), and is therefore able to identify dangerous cancer cells and destroy them. Here, the red granules are the T cell’s killing weapon; they are cytotoxic granules and are able to permeate the cancer cell membrane, releasing lymphokines which signal an immune response and activate the process of apoptosis (cell death).

The cancer cell here shows the nucleus (black), the endothelial reticulum (the green parallel bars, middle left) and many internal vacuoles in various colours, representing the self-digesting process associated with apoptosis. The power of the T-cell alone, however, is not always enough to succeed in its task, as it is often difficult to achieve accurate identification of a cancer cell.

It is the potential power of these T-cells that have led research scientists to continue to investigate how they might be manipulated further. It is hoped they will help to provide much safer, and more effective, treatments for cancer, which work in conjunction with the bodies own immune response. This has led many to believe these cells could be our ‘knight in shining armour’ against cancer.

According to the Christian belief, in the story of the heroic St George, patron saint of England, many people died before the monstrous dragon could first be wounded and then publicly killed. On its death the king established a Christian church in St George’s name, and within it a ‘fountain of living water’ which was said to heal the sick.

This image is one of a collection acquired by Wellcome Images from London-based scientific artist Odra Noel. Odra trained as a doctor and has a PhD in basic science from the University of London. Her art training includes a BA in aesthetics and music.

From her exposure through the microscope to cell culture, organ dissection, tissue analysis and morphological studies, she has developed an enthusiastic interest in scientific art. The original artworks are painted silks which have been digitised for inclusion in our image library, Wellcome Images.

Wellcome is a proud champion of public engagement which places science at the heart of the cultural landscape. Over the last twenty years we have spent more than £230m supporting projects that find creative ways to involve people in conversations about how science and research shapes our health, our lives and our society. Across drama, film, art and games, in venues, festivals and galleries across the world, we have seen the extraordinary value of bringing research and culture together and the impact it has on enthusiastic and growing audiences.

The launch of a new strategic framework at Wellcome last October gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we deliver support for public engagement activities and challenge ourselves to make it even better. After listening to feedback we have decided to take a short pause in our funding activities in order to properly review the way we support great ideas and make our systems more responsive, faster, and better able to support the projects and people whose inspiring work drives everything we do.

Our support for public engagement will not be reduced. This temporary break is entirely focused on enabling us to be more agile, to make our schemes easier to understand and navigate and to reduce barriers to access so that we can support ideas from the broadest possible range of people and organisations. We want to ensure our schemes encourage and enable collaborations between our communities and we are keen to do more to nurture talent.

From August 2016 our existing Engaging Science funding schemes will not be open for new applications. The new funding framework will be announced in November 2016 with the first deadlines for submission in early 2017.

There will be an opportunity to submit an application to most of our regular funding schemes before the end of July, the final deadlines are:

Capital Awards – 13 May

People Awards – 20 May

Small Arts – 1 June

Co-Production Awards (Large) – 17 June

Co-Production Awards (Small) – 8 July

Development Awards – 27 July

The following schemes will not have a further deadline in 2016:

Large Arts

Society Awards

Sustaining Excellence

Engagement Fellowships

International Engagement

We will still be launching the Inspiring Science Capital Fund this summer, in partnership with BIS.

If you submit an application by these deadlines or already have an application with us please be assured these will progress as normal.

We will communicate changes as swiftly as we can and if we are able to share news ahead of November we will. For more information please check our website for Q&As. If you’ve any queries or suggestions you’d like to share, please do get in touch.

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The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health by supporting bright minds in science, the humanities and social sciences, and public engagement. Read more.

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